From A To Z
by brookesdavis
Summary: From dealing with PTSD to falling in love. Fights and freedom, intimacy and pain. Follow the comprehensive account of Lindsay and Halstead's story. From A to Z.
1. Prelude

**Back with another story! Since Wednesday night, I have been in pure bliss. [Could that scene have been any hotter?!] Anyway, I wanted to write a continuation from the episode, but decided not to stop there. It's going to span across their relationship and hopefully reach some kind of resolution by the time we reach 'Z'. **

**Since the 'A' i've written is pretty choppy in the beginning, I needed this prelude to set the scene. So it's short, and to the point, but hopefully a starting section.**

**Like I said, this is a continuation, so it's set in 2x11. I really hope you guys enjoy this!**

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><p>He kissed her, like she was the ocean and he wanted to drown. He was forceful and hard, her body aching for him in a depth she never fully appreciated. His kiss ended, tearing his lips from hers and giving her room to breathe.<p>

But all she wanted was to suffocate against him.

She let out a smile before he returned home, the kiss deepening as his body pressed against hers. All she could think of was lost time, the wasted days where she fought against instinct. His had was holding her jaw and his tongue snaked its way into her mouth. Intoxicating.

She tugged his shirt and felt hers untuck. Everything was fast and flustered, a primal need for the touch of his skin overpowering every other feeling in her system.

Her bra was against his chest. She touched his bicep. She could feel his breathing become heavy and his touch quicken. He needed this just as much as she did.

At some point in the undressing and aching, Erin was spun around, and she was pushing against his body into the wood of the doorframe.

His fingertips tangled in her hair and danced on the small of her back, all the while his tongue fighting against hers. He was restless and hungry. And she was desperate.

His fingers against her neck was exhilarating, teasing her pulse to well above the normal rate. Her skin was soft against his calloused hands, and she never wanted him to let go.

Lindsay's hands found his bare sides, gliding against as much skin as she could manage. Then his chest and shoulders and neck, the line of his jaw and the line of hair at the nape of his neck.

When Jay kissed her neck, Erin lost all function. Her entire body curved to him, never wanting him to relinquish the pressure. A moan slipped her lips and she could feel his turn in a smile against her skin. When he pulled back she was about to moan again, out of disheartenment than pleasure, but then his hands were round the backs of her thighs and everything left her mind.

Seconds before he lifted her, there was a brief moment where their breathing synchronised and there was room to respire. She looked at his lips, the flushed pink lips that wars could be started over, and flicked her gaze to his eyes, which were so blue she figured she might drown in them.

And as she gave him a smile of consent, he raised her high enough to let her legs hook round his waist, and carried them both to a new found euphoria.

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><p>She wasn't going to call it <em>'making love'.<em> She wasn't _that_ girl.

And yet if felt cheap to call it sex. Because people had sex every day. She'd had sex, plenty of times. And that certainly wasn't sex.

It was moaning and tugging and biting and holding and giving into every desire she'd had since the first time she met him. It wasn't sex and it wasn't impulsive. It was inevitable.

His chest was still rising and falling in a steep manner, lying on his back with his head turned to the right to look at her. She was on the right side of his bed, turned on her side and looking at him like he'd just given her everything. Maybe because he had.

His eyes were smiling, but she could see the hesitance. As though he was waiting for her to leave at any second. Maybe a part of her was waiting to do the same, too. Because that's what happened wasn't it? You go to a guy's apartment, let your heart beat loud enough for him to hear, and then leave with tousled hair and a kiss-stained neck.

But his bed was warm; too warm for her to leave. And his eyes were too soft for her to walk out. And her heart was too broken already for her to tear herself away from something that had given her the truest sense of happiness she'd had in a while.

So she let her fingertips find their way to his collarbone and trace the lines, her heart fluttering as his whole body seemed to soften at her touch.

Jay took the initiative to reach out his fingers, sliding them between Erin's and dropping their entwined hands to the space between them. His thumb traced the skin up and down in a motion that could've sent her into a hypnotic sleep right then and there.

Somewhere between the thumb strokes, Lindsay leaned over and kissed his throat, then jaw and then the corner of his mouth. Light, soft pecks that probably evaporated the second her lips left his skin. But that didn't matter. She just needed the taste of him. Everywhere.

And then somewhere between the jaw kisses and the thumb strokes, she drifted into a soft, blurry sleep. In Jay Halstead's bed. With Jay Halstead's scent still on her. With Jay Halstead's heart beating just as loud as hers was.

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><p><strong>Just as an introduction, I hope it wasn't too much of a fluff-fest. Update should be coming soon, 'A for Afghanistan', anyone?<strong>


	2. A for Afghanistan

**I want to put out a big THANK YOU to everyone for reviewing/favouriting/following this after just the first chapter. I love every single one of you beautiful humans. **

**Disclaimer: This chapter deals with some PTSD and although I have explored the topic fairly decently, I am in no way claiming extensive knowledge on the subject. That being said, I hope it's fairly realistic. Also, I own nothing.**

_**'A for Afghanistan'**_

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><p><em>The red dust fills his lungs, suffocating him from the inside out. He splutters in the raging heat, rubbing his clouded vision.<em>

_He's back there; the wasteland of Afghanistan._

_The gravelly rocks crunch under his feet and he can't regain his breath. He's afraid._

_Jay looks down, expecting to see his combat uniform. With only a t-shirt and jeans as protection, he feels bare. He's afraid still._

_A blazing wind lifts his hair, whirling more of the dust into his eyes. The stinging ensues. He swallows and winces at the scathing pain at the back of his throat. He needs to get out, but the dunes stretch for miles. He's alone. And afraid._

_"Hey, Jay! Go long!" The innocent voice calls, so happy and light it's almost carried away. Jay turns around immediately, following the sound._

_And there he is; Ben Corson. Eight years old, slouching in baggy jeans and a plain blue shirt. The shirt is as bright as his eyes. His signature baseball cap sits backwards on his head, a few strands of hair ruffled by the fluctuating wind. He tosses the baseball between his small hands, his grin widening._

_Jay feels himself stumble._

_"Ben?" He asks, not daring to believe it._

_The young boy kicks the ground, digging the toes of his sneakers into the gravel. He's still smiling, the ball slipping between his fingertips as he continues to throw it up and down._

_Halstead steps forward, his eyes wide as he takes in the sight._

_"I can't believe-" He starts, almost smiling, before interrupted by another voice that sends chills down his spine._

_"Honey, dinner's ready!"_

_He whips round immediately, feeling his face go lax. His jaw drops and everything stops for a second. The wind dies out and the pain in his throat subsides. The heat eases and the sun stops straining. All for a second._

_"Mom?"_

_His lips barely move. His eyelids are fluttering and he can feel the tears brimming. She's there, close enough for him to run and embrace. She's there in her apron, her hair curled and her smile soft. She's there like she was when he was ten. She's fresh faced and bright. She's home._

_Everything feels real. When the wind decides to pick up, he can smell her perfume. It's soothing. It's the smell he sought out; sitting in her closet for hours as a boy, anything left inside of himself breaking when he could no longer pick up the scent. But it's back._

_His hopeful eyes want to cry. And she smiles like she knows._

_And then it tears through him. Well, the bullet actually tears through his mother. But Jay feels it all the same._

_He doesn't hear the gunshot and he doesn't see the bullet. He just sees her crumple to the burning ground with blood seeping from her abdomen._

_He screams. An animal's cry of dispair. He runs to her._

_Blood. So much blood._

_He's holding her on the ground. And he's sweating and crying._

_"Mom," He's crying in the red hot sun. "Mom, please." The blood pours like a stream, trailing past the two of them into nothingness._

_His hands, bigger than they were at ten, lace with the warm red liquid. His tears are coming fast now. He's still screaming. He's screaming and crying and sweating in the painful heat._

_"Stay with me, Mom." _

_He can't stop the bleeding._

_"Jay?"_

_He can barely see through the tears, but he turns just the same. He turns to the voice of a scared boy._

_Ben clutches his neck. Jay can't see the rope, but he can see the marks. Red, deep, cutting through skin. Strangulation._

_Ben falls, spluttering for breath._

_"Jay?" He cries out in agony, writhing on the floor as the marks deepen._

_Jay's shaking. Blood still pours onto him, and he looks down into the wounded eyes of his mother, still hanging on. His laboured breath becomes erratic and he looks at her, pleading. Almost begging. He needs to go._

_"Jay!" Ben cries again, this one masked by tears and pain._

_Jay lays his mother down, and with what feels like a final breath, he draws his hands from her wound._

_He's crying, breathing, aching, sweating, pleading._

_He runs to Ben and throws his body onto the ground alongside the dying boy. His bloody hands seek out his neck, but can't feel the rope._

_Ben splutters and screams in agony. His face drains of colour._

_"No, no, no, no," Jay chants in a traumatised scream. "No!"_

_Ben goes limp, his face contorted in inexplicable torment._

_"Halstead!" A voice yells. He recognises it immediately as Erin's._

_He's sweating so much now. He's in pain. He feels as though he's going to pass out. Hold on. Hold on._

_He looks up, loses his breath all over again._

_She's standing with her hands locked behind her back, nothing but the sand dunes as a backdrop to her look of fear. She's quivering. She's close to crying. She's terrified. There's a vulnerability in her face that breaks anything left in him._

_"Jay, help-"_

_She doesn't finish her sentence. The skin of her neck breaks in a wide laceration. Blood seeps out instantly._

_He's running __on the terrain again, but the rough sand trips him in his stride and he's on the ground, scrambling to his feet despite the pain in his body._

_He's never felt so much fear. His body hurts. His head hurts. He looks back at Ben, in the midst of death. He looks forward to his partner, fallen to her knees, tears mixing with the blood as it trails down her body. He looks to his mother, slowly but surely, having her life stolen away._

_He's on his feet again, everything inside of him aching._

_He catches Lindsay before she falls completely into the blistering terrain. There's blood everywhere._

_Screams fill his ears. Everyone screams. They all beg for his help._

_He's sweating. He's helpless._

_He looks down at Erin and her body shakes._

_He looks up, and the backdrop is laced with the dead. Bodies of Afghan children crumple everywhere. The screams become deafening. He sees old platoon members, bawling as they teeter on the edge of living._

_Johnson begs for help, the voice so real it's haunting. Ricardo is crying for someone to relieve the pain. Blake's body begins to disintegrate before his eyes. Stone is screaming._

_They're all howling his name. They need help. He's their last hope. They scream his name as though their lives depend on it. And they do._

"Jay!" Erin yelled. She was holding his body, attempting to calm him into a stillness. As his body thrashed against the bed, he screamed in affliction. It was a cry so unsettling Lindsay felt her blood run cold.

And it all came from nowhere.

One minute, Erin was drifting through her sleep, the next a blood curdling scream stopped her heart.

"Jay! Wake up!" She shook his body, calling his name. "Jay!"

All at once, his thrashing subsided and so did his screams. Halstead's body continued to shake as his tear-soaked eyes opened with shock.

"It's okay, you're okay," Erin assured him, her hands still holding his shoulders. He struggled to regain his breath. "Just look right at me, okay. You're fine. It was a just a nightmare. It wasn't real, it was just a nightmare."

As she said the words with the utmost confidence, Erin couldn't help but question herself. The way he was crying out, the way his body shook... It felt like a lot more than 'just a nightmare'.

"You're okay." She repeated, for what felt like an infinite time. "I'll get you some water."

Her fingertips lingered on his shoulder until he nodded, still spluttering for air.

She grabbed a sweater from the side of his bed as she exited the room with haste, tugging it on her form as she told herself to calm down. She couldn't freak out. Whatever it was that Jay was going through, it required a level-headed Lindsay. She filled the glass with speed, swallowing hard when she felt even her own hand shaking slightly. When the returned to his room, his head was in his hands, his breathing so heavy she could hear it from the doorway.

She sank back onto the comfort of his bed, handing him the glass. She sat close by as he drank the water in almost one gulp, his adam's apple bobbing as though he hadn't drank in days. Lindsay watched intently as he swallowed, realising she'd never seen him so vulnerable.

There was still a visible shake to his stature, and his body looked overwhelmingly fatigued. She saw a sheen of sweat lace his body. And even through the silence, a quiet so haunting, all Erin could hear was the echoing of his wounded cries.

She'd never done this before; sure, clearing up after her mom was a regular thing, but it was never like this. She never felt her heart break looking at her half-unconscious mother. She never got the urge to pull her close and and hold her through the night, pushing away the demons. She never felt this much anguish.

Almost instinctively, she reached out a hand to the back of his neck. Her fingers hovered over the skin when she registered her movements, wondering whether or not it was overstepping. Fighting against doubt, her cold fingertips stroked the nape of his neck as his breathing softly slowed.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Erin finally asked tentatively.

Jay shook his head almost immediately. "Not really." She could hear the echoing of her own words from earlier that night.

"It could help..." She went on to suggest.

"No."

So she nodded, her eyes on him as he slowly let his body succum to the tire. His breathing was still fairly heavy, but not nearly as strained as it was before.

After a few moments, the two of them fighting through the night, Jay ran his fingers through his hair again and gripped it at the root. And then he looked to Erin with heartbroken eyes. She could see the shame and embarrassment in them, and in that moment, wanted to fix everything for him.

His eyes then drifted to the skin of her neck. There was only a minuscule scar that remained from the incident at the hospital, a mark of a psycho holding a knife against her in desperation. His hand reached out, thumbing the injury. His hand extended round the rest of her neck and their foreheads fell against one another.

Erin had a million questions, all of them that she desperately wanted an answer for. But he was still breaking, and now wasn't the time.

All at once, he kissed her. It was soft and smooth against her lips, taking her by surprise. When he pulled back after half a second, she caught his eyes.

"Jay..."

He kissed her again, more pressure. He tasted phenomenal, and her body yearned for him. But then she heard his screams echo in the crevice of her brain and pulled back.

"We don't have to..."

She didn't want to have sex to put off talking. She wanted it both, sex and talking. To help him fight through the pain. But she knew Jay, and being closed off was sort of his thing.

So if kissing him was the only way she could console him, she was sure as hell ready to do it. When he leaned in again, she met him halfway and nudged her lips against his. He pulled her on top of him and gripped her hips.

And although the touch of his lips seemed to fix her world, she couldn't help wondering whether or not his was crumbling around her.

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><p><strong>I'VE BEEN WANTING TO WRITE JAY'S PTSD FOR 20 YEARS! [okay exaggeration but basically a seriously long time]<strong>

**It's something I really want the writers to explore, so my dream situation in the show would be something like this for the beginning of Wednesday's episode. Obviously we're not that lucky, so I hope this chapter was an adequate consolation.**

**Thank you for taking the time to read! I'd really appreciate your thoughts. You all rock.**

_**Coming up: 'B for Breakfast'**_


	3. B for Breakfast

**Here we are, chapter two, B! I'm inexplicably excited for tonights episode, so I wanted to get this posted before it aired. A big thank you for you response from the 'A' chapter, it's really motivated me to dedicate myself to this storyline. Thank you!**

_**'B for Breakfast'**_

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><p>She didn't sleep. She let her eyes close and she relaxed her breathing, but after he fell asleep with his body tangled in hers she couldn't bring herself to succumb to tire.<p>

Jay's screams were repeating in her head; relentless, unwavering, constant.

She guessed PTSD. She knew he'd served in the past, but that was the extent of her knowledge. She never knew how to properly approach the situation, and he never knew how to let her in.

Even if he was suffering trauma from his time in war, Erin didn't have a clue how to tackle something like that.

So she lay there, his skin soft and warm against hers and prayed that nightmares would evade him. And despite the fact the rest of his sleep appeared sound, Erin couldn't deny the heaviness stuck in her heart even as the sun rose.

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><p>His eyes gradually opened to a dense stream of sunlight invading the room. And his stomach immediately dropped.<p>

The space beside him was empty, a lost imprint in the sheet where Erin had been. And he knew exactly why it was now just a dented section of material.

The nightmare.

He ran a hand through the root of his hair as he recalled the night before. While the memory of Lindsay's body writing under his lit a fire inside of him, he shuddered thinking of what he'd dreamt. He could still taste the sand on his tongue, the heat in his throat. It was the worse he'd had in a while. And of course it had to be on the same night that he finally made it with Erin.

All of a sudden he heard her footprints, and a part of him considered himself to be daydreaming. But she had his sweater on, curved round her collarbone and cut off at the top of her thigh, showing just enough leg to drive him wild.

He'd had the privilege of seeing Erin in so many different lights. 9am Lindsay was great, albeit somewhat gloomy. 1pm Lindsay was fun, having loosened up during the morning. 7pm Lindsay was one of the better ones, the promise of a beer at her place elevating his spirits. 11pm Lindsay was his favourite though, painfully gorgeous under her hallway lights or a Chicago streetlamp.

But no, this was a whole new level. 7.23am Lindsay was, by miles, something that took his breath away.

Like a kid at christmas, a grin spread across his lips as he saw her. She was holding two coffee mugs in her hands, padding along his floor as she slid back into his bed. It felt warmer the second she reached it.

"Morning." She rasped, and he could see she was trying not to smile.

"Morning," He echoed, accepting the coffee she handed him. He held it between his hands, but refused to take his eyes off of Erin. Her hair was soft and tangled round her shoulders, and he could still feel it between the tips of his fingers.

She took a sip of her beverage, but now he could see how she was holding something back. There was a tension there, unmistakable.

Finally, she put him out his misery.

"About last night." She stated, openly and brazen. She shifted uncomfortably, though, and took a deep breath when she finally looked him in the eye. "Look, I don't know if it was just a simple nightmare that you had, or a one time thing..."

He crumbled under her stare.

"Erin." His voice was calm, a steadiness put on with everything he had. "I'm fine." He let the corner of his lips turn up in a smile.

"Jay..." She mumbled his name, attempting to coax something, anything out of him. But he was still holding the smile, determined to not let something as petty as a war flashback put a dampener on the morning.

"Erin..." He mumbled it back, leaning over to her and honing in close on her lips.

His forehead hovered near hers and he could still see the worry imprinted on her face. And although that lifted something inside of him, it wasn't enough for him to put that kind of pressure on her by relinquishing his entire past in one sitting.

And then he kissed her, teasing a smile from her lips when she eventually tilted her head to deepen the angle. And then with mug-warmed fingertips, she touched his chest. He could feel the self-control it took to press his torso backwards and pull her lips from his.

"I've gotta get to work." She whined softly, disgruntled. "Still trying to get on Lang's good side."

"Don't let him drive and keep him dangling for about a year." Jay chimed in, struggling to tear his eyes from her lips. "That ought to do it."

She let out a breathy laugh, and it was a sound he could hear every morning for the rest of his life. She bit her lip and inched closer.

"I did not keep you dangling."

"'Maybe one day?'" He jogged her memory. Her smile broadened.

"That was just..." She came closer still, knocking her nose against his. "Keeping you on your toes." She whispered.

"You did a good job of it." He whispered back, letting her kiss him softly. It lasted only a few seconds and was over all too soon, but her taste lingered.

"I've gotta go." She repeated, even more discontented than before. Yet she managed to pull herself from the bed, sliding her mug to the bedside table as she reached the doorframe. She stopped when she got there, one hand holding the wood as she turned to face Jay.

He was looking at her like she was the sun, and she couldn't believe it when a blush rose to her cheeks.

"Quick question." She noted. "Does this mean that 'One Day' is no longer a maybe?"

He grinned. "Oh, definitely."

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><p>She couldn't stop thinking about him. He'd infected her, drifted into her bloodstream and seeped into her being. She missed the taste of his smile and the way his hands held her sides.<p>

Lang was being his arrogant self for most of the day, giving her the cold shoulder and then complaining when things were done wrong. But he'd took on board her request about the CI's, so that was at least a start.

Despite everything, her mind kept going back to Jay's nightmare. She was less inclined to call it that the more she thought about it.

Sure, he'd brushed it off, but he seemed to do that with everything personal. And the hollow screams were haunting her, so she could only imagine how it plagued his mind.

And all the while, she thought about how to approach the issue. Wondering whether or not it was an issue she could approach. Or should.

Did he want her infiltrating his past like that, even if it helped him?

Erin had suffered nightmares before. But she scared her self back to reality and the worse she had was an elevated pulse rate. But no, Halstead was facing an angst she didn't even begin to know how to categorise. Especially since it appeared to be PTSD from several events; she'd heard the tragedy of his life story in the midst of his screams, not just war flashbacks. He was broken in more places than one.

So as Erin sat her desk in her new workplace, all she wanted was to be there for him in a way he always managed to be for her.

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><p>Another painful aspect of the new job was the hours she was subject to. She thought nights at Intelligence were long, but Lang seemed to keep her there longer than imaginable.<p>

It was almost 10pm when she got home, dragging her tired body up the stairwell with all her might. But then she hit her floor and a new energy found her body.

"Finally." Jay said with a grin breaking out.

He was sat outside of her door, but lifted to his feet the second she saw him. Then she noted the brown bag gripped in his hand.

"I was beginning to think you'd moved apartments or something." He said while Erin neared and searched her pockets for the key. She fished it out quickly and slid it into the lock, turning her head to look Halstead up and down.

"I might have to," She said, flicking the door open. "Seems like there's a crazy person stalking my home."

He nodded solemnly, feigning being deep in thought.

"Right. Well I could just find another place to stalk. Pancakes are everyone's favourite, right?"

He lifted his arm up 90 degrees and Erin immediately felt her stomach murmur at the appetising smell. She found his bright eyes and he was biting down softly on his lower lip.

"I didn't get a chance to buy you breakfast." He explained.

Her mouth twitched as she took the bag from his hands. She took a step into her apartment and flicked her head, motioning inside.

"Get in," She told him with a chuckle.

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><p>She ate the pancakes, which tasted like syrupy heaven, and sipped from her beer. It was over all too soon, but he stayed on her couch even after he'd devoured the food.<p>

A part of her was watching him out of the corner of her eye. And her soul lifted as she watched his eyes dart to the action on the television. He was her best friend. And if she wanted to, she could lean over and kiss the lips that had offered consolation on so many occasions that she needed it. And if she wanted to, she could clasp the hand that held hers on the night of her reunion. He was just the same as he always was, only now she could do all the things she'd forced herself not to in so many instances.

Or was he the same?

He moved his body forward slightly, leaning toward the game that was ensuing. His eyes were bright and expressive, his hands gripping his knees.

And all Erin could hear was his screams from the night before.

"Hey," She said softly, drawing his gaze from the game to her. "You wanna talk?"

He watched her for a second, his expression softening. He blinked a few times, a look of sincerity.

"Sure," He said slowly, turning the TV off and bringing his full attention to Erin. "Something on your mind?"

She shook her head, scooting closer to him. Their knees were touching.

"Tell me something." She said, challenging.

She watched his eyes, and a smile of mischief lace his lips. "I really want to kiss you right now."

Her lips tugged at the corners, despite her best effort. He came in close, his smell enveloping her vicinity and sending her momentarily dizzy.

He dipped his head in, his breath just above her neck. Breathing was becoming difficult for her.

"Jay," She moaned, trying to sound disapproving and displeased. "I'm serious."

"So am I."

He brushed his lips against the skin of her neck, smiling when he felt her give in and slide her fingers round the nape of his neck. He then felt her tug his direction upwards, connecting their lips.

She wanted to kiss him forever.

How had she gone so long not kissing him?

How was she ever going to stop?

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><p>That night, he didn't sleep. And she knew that because she stayed awake watching him. She watched as he feigned a deep sleep with fluttering, dreaming eyelids. But she wasn't an idiot. She knew he was simulating rest.<p>

And in the moment where his jaw tightened and his lids flittered, in the moment where he was afraid to let himself sleep, Erin resolved to fix things. Whether he wanted to let her in or not.

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><p><strong>Thanks for reading!<strong>

_**Coming up: 'C for Counselling'**_


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